Family Ties in Ancestral Herbal Healing
A Digital Exhibit by Natalie Saldarriaga
Introduction
The notion of inheriting family trauma is widely recognized and talked about today. Just one scroll online and we can observe countless people discussing the idea of breaking generational curses. Although this pain is real and valid, it appears that we believe our familial inheritance can solely be tragic. That we are destined to only acquire pain from our ancestors, but it’s important to recognize that our ancestors have also passed down healing.
Though this healing is sometimes one that needs to be remembered as we live out our own lives. And it goes beyond what our parents or grandparents did or didn’t do. This healing is something we carry with us from the moment we are born because it originates from nature. When we strip back all the modernities our society offers us, and we go back to basics, we connect with an instinct that lives within us because it lived alongside our ancestors for centuries.
Ancestral Herbal Narratives
Ancestral Herbal Narratives is a Community History Project founded by Raíces Cultural Center. This project is dedicated to preserving and sharing unique stories, narratives, and histories of herbalists and healers from diverse cultural backgrounds and healing traditions. Participants are asked a series of questions related to healing, herbs, and cultural traditions.
As one can imagine, the topic of family often arises during interviews and we found that healing traditions are almost always passed down through family lineages. Rarely have our participants become involved with healing and herbal medicine without first witnessing it at home or learning about it directly or indirectly from a family member. And once an interviewee becomes aware of this, it is as if they begin intuitively remembering their own healing powers. Because if they have learned these traditions from family members, then their ancestors have learned them from theirs. We dare say that healing is embedded in our DNA, but due to the world we live in, we often need a nudge to recapture our ancient herbal connection.
Our relationship with nature has diminished so much over the past several decades that herbalism to many seems like hocus pocus only the hippies partake in. But the truth is that you don’t have to be a shaman or have an apothecary to practice herbalism. The truth is that your family has probably been practicing herbalism without actually calling it that.
Jimena Vega
During her interview, Jimena Vega recalls what it was like in her Ecuadorian community growing up. She remembers that they had a curandero called Compita. Her mother took her to this healer when she was sick and conventional medicine was not helping. She also remembers her mother and grandmother having their own knowledge of plants due to the lack of doctors they had in their community.
My mom, my grandmother, they all lived- all those generations were born in the, en la provincia no se como se dice en ingles. En lado de la provincia de Ecuador. So pretty much they didn’t have doctors, or they didn’t have anything. So they have the knowledge of plants. So when they moved to the city and I was born there, my grandmother and my mom, they still have that knowledge. So every time if I get sick or something they use plants for anything, you know.
This is the story of many other people who have traditionally grown up around plants and herbal healing but never put a name to it. Though their use of plants at home seems small, it is still herbalism, and it is a teaching that comes from family. These small remedies that our grandmothers made us when we had head colds are valuable knowledge that has been passed down for generations.
Antonia Estela Pérez
Herbal remedies were daily rituals for many families. They were something that most people participated in. In today’s society this has, of course, changed. Herbs are so undervalued that it makes herbalism seem like something rare when historically it has not been this way. So when the younger generation learns about family members that have used herbalism, it often comes as a surprise to them how “normal” it is seen by the elders. Today herbalism is viewed almost as a luxury when for our ancestors it was about survival. That is why it is so vital that we sit down with our older generations to have conversations about herbal traditions and medicine. From these conversations we can gain a new perspective, just as our interviewee Antonia Estella Pèrez did when speaking to her grandmother.
And I’ve learned a lot through them about plants, but I wouldn’t say they, personally have like, they’re not like an encyclopedia of herbs, but it definitely comes through in like different moments and memories. And sometimes I’m really surprised I’m like, oh, why didn’t you share this before? But I would say my grandma on my mom’s side is who I learned a lot from and who was always studying until, you know, she was a hundred, always referencing her mom’s herbal book. And that was really beautiful to see that relationship to learning even as an elder and continuing to to reference. So hearing her stories of how she grew up and how her grandma supported them when they were sick, like compresses those stories were really important to give a picture of how people were in relationship to their body and the land before, specifically in Chile.
The beauty of sitting down and talking to our elders is that we get to decide what we will do with these stories passed down to us. We can shrug them off and keep them locked in our memories for them to be forgotten when we die. Or we can take this history and culture to dig deep within ourselves. Like mentioned before, our relationship to herbs runs blood deep. We innately have a relationship with nature; we just have to be open to receive its healing powers. But remembering these powers takes a lot of work and dedication. Fortunately there are many who have decided not to shy away from the challenge.
Evelyn Sepulveda
Such as Evelyn Sepulveda, who watched her own mother use herbal practices to help neighbors as she was growing up. This sparked a curiosity in her that later in life would inspire her to venture out on her own spiritual and herbal journey with an Ifá baba. She understood how important it is to keep these ancestral traditions alive rather than bury them with secrecy and shame.
And I was starting to learn about all these energies and ancestors and Orishas, and how it connects to what I knew and what I learned from my mom, and where I think she got it from, too. I think that during my mother’s era, there was more secrecy to it. Like, you couldn’t really talk about it too much. I don’t, I disagree with that, because if we don’t talk about it, we’re gonna lose it. Right? And those are all important things of my ancestors, of my life that I wanna know, and I wanna teach it to my children and my grandchildren. But we disconnected over the years.
This is the power that storytelling and traditions can have on present and future generations. In recent years the use of herbal remedies is being reawakened. There are many who are looking not only to heal themselves but also to find themselves in their studies of herbs.
Remembering Our Ancestors, Healing Ourselves
When we remember our ancestors, we also remember ourselves. We often think of ourselves as separate from the past, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. We just need to look in the mirror to see that all those who have come before us are still right here with us. If we can share the same eyes or freckles on our nose, then we can also share in those herbal traditions. All we need to do is open our hearts and ears to the healing that is waiting to find us.
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